Cool GIF Series: Apollo 12 Saturn V Rocket Stage Orbital Path

Interesting and really pretty too!

You can see clearly just how this sort of boomeranging can power space ships as in the recent comet encounter......

Thanks

Yeah, I agree. As much as I think I understand something in theory, it's always illuminating to actually see the motion and obtain a more intuitive feel for it. This GIF really helped me understand it a bit more (and made me realize what a mess the trajectories of small solar system objects must be).

In chemical physics (or physical chemistry depending on the view point), the classical three-body problem is a tough one, and even with perturbation theory as a mathematical means of arriving at approximate solutions to the motion of the particles. I cannot imagine how anyone can reasonably assert they know much at all about the orbits of space debris (although with this larger one I can see how), given the number of influences however small.

I know what you mean. Hey, are you in any way associated with MOPAC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOPAC

That is a completely different James Stewart.

Gotcha. Anyway I also am familiar with many body problems and I totally agree with your statement.

Roger,

Thanks for the post.

I shared it with my coworkers many like myself who remember the Apollo launches as kids and many who remember them as adult engineers.

Awesome! Yeah, it was one of those things that I saw and thought "That's pretty cool...I'm posting that".

Hi Roger, yea thanks for this one, it's way cool!

I wonder if it may have escaped form Earth now and is in an independent orbit around the Sun? It has definitely stolen some orbital energy from the Moon, but whether it was enough to escape the Earth-Moon system I don't know. I suppose it will depend on whether its orbit will bring it close to earth again one day.

-J

Hi Jorrie,

From what I read, they call it a "high unstable Earth orbit" and they expect it to have another near encounter with Earth in another 40 years, which I guess means it's still in orbit with us, but I'm not positive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J002E3

Hi Roger, yes, seeing that the L1 Lagrangian point features in the plot, J002E3 is probably in heliocentric orbit around L1, which by nature is an unstable orbit.

If so, it will eventually leave that orbit for good and have an independent orbit. As James said, too many influences to be sure. It may even crash into Earth or the Moon at some future time, they say.

-J

Good catch regarding the Lagrangian point Jorrie. That indeed does seem to be the case:

http://www.observadores-cometas.com/neos/J002e3/J002e3.htm

Really cool !

Once again I'm late to this party but very cool link. The one thing that threw me for a few minutes is the unidentified designation of L1 in the animation. That's the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Sun.